The trend of the data is apparent. We can obtain a
measure of that trend by asking the
computer to fit a line to the data. Then, following the program at
SchoolMatters, we put a one-standard deviation band around the fitted line:

As you might expect, the scores go down as
the poverty goes up. Indeed, the least squares fit to the data shows a drop of 1.95 points for a 10% increase in the
percentage of free lunches.

Of course, there's no particular reason to
expect a linear relationship between SOL scores and the percentage of
subsidized lunches. The fitted line clearly shows the trend, however, and gives a
measure of how Virginia's school divisions perform compared to that trend
line. On that basis, Norfolk and Richmond are performing just about as
expected.

The R2 value tells
us that the free and reduced percentage explains just over a third of
the variance in the SOL score. These numbers don't tell us were the
other 2/3 comes from. Plainly something else is involved: Charlotte
County is at 49.4% F/R and they scored 93, over two standard deviations
above the fitted line; Mecklenburg County has 53.93% F/R and their English
score was 92, also more than two standard deviations up. Both of these
school divisions are doing almost as well as the best of the divisions with
only 10% F/R.

Why do you suppose Richmond is not out studying Charlotte
and Mecklenburg to figure out what they are doing right?

About the only thing good one can say about Richmond on
these data is that we are not doing as terrible a job as poor Petersburg (in
the cellar with a SOL of 61).

The math test gives similar results:

Scott County and (ta-da!) Mecklenburg County both are
around 53% F/R and both are over two standard deviations above the fitted
line. Norfolk, as you see, is fading, but then you knew that from the
trends in the raw SOL scores.

BTW: Charlotte, Mecklenburg, and Scott Counties all are on
the
SchoolMatters list (link now broken) of Virginia districts that, as of 2004-05, had a
three-year history of "outperformance." Norfolk is on that
list for 2004-05 but, as we have seen,
it since has taken a tumble.

We can get another comparison to Norfolk from the
Census data. These include income and poverty data from 1999.
Here is a summary:

We have an unusually large number of folks in Richmond who
are not working:

Nonetheless, our mean, per capita, and median earnings all
are higher than Norfolk's:

Except as to families with female householders, we have
more poverty than Norfolk:

In particular, about 11.8% of our families have an income
less than $ 10,000, while in Norfolk that datum is 10.5%:

The census data show we are more affluent than Norfolk but
they fail to explain why
we are spending over $ 2,500 per kid more than Norfolk on our schools or
why we're getting so little for the extra money
or why we have the 2d worst truancy record in
the state in our secondary schools. Likewise, the
special education enrollment does not explain the
high cost or low performance of the Richmond System.

As an aside: We also have data that
illustrate the relationship between poverty and SOL performance of the
Richmond elementary schools.